Kamnial (Kambil), Abraham B. Meïr Ibn (Known In Arabic As Abu Al-Ḥasan)

Spanish physician and patron of poetry and literature; protector of the Jewish communities in Spain, Babylonia, and Egypt; lived in Saragossa about the year 1100. He is known in the history of Hebrew grammar by the mnemonic sentence  ("the way of truth was established"), in which he joined the eleven servile letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The poet Moses ibn Ezra lauds him extravagantly in his "Tarshish," or "'Anaḳ," which is dedicated to Kamnial, and in which the whole of the first poem dilates upon his benevolence and uponthe honor generally shown him. Judah ha-Levi praised him in several poems and composed his epitaph. Of his relatives, Abu Omar Joseph ben Kamnial, also a physician, is known. Moses ibn Ezra composed a wedding-poem for him, and, perhaps, also dedicated to him his work on poetics—"Kitab al-Muḥadharah."

Bibliography:

  * Moses ibn Ezra, Tarshish, ed. Günzburg. pp. 5-28;
  * Joseph Ḳimḥi, Sefer Zikkaron, ed. Bacher, p. 3;
  * S. D. Luzzatto, in kerem Ḥemed, iv. 70;
  * A. Geiger, Oẓar Neḥmad, i. 105;
  * Edelmann, Ginze Oxford, p. xiv.;
  * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1809.



G. A. K.